Surviving a tornado - Time and Motion study Mid-South Lumber SafeRooms.

Time and Motion Study

A very important tool in determining the appropriate location for an emergency shelter for a home is a "Motion and Time Study". It is important to determine the time it will take for each family member to reach the safe room from living and sleeping quarters. Tornadoes usually strike with little advanced warning. Most tornado survivors say that they had less than one minute to seek shelter when they found that they were about to be hit by the tornado. Bear in mind that movement may have to be done in darkness and outside under very hazardous conditions.

Example

Assume you have determined the following travel times for various legs of the trip from a child's room to the safe room. The following is an example of the child's travel time.

StormCloset in First Floor Closet

Leg of Trip to Emergency Shelter		Travel Time (seconds)
1. Bedroom to upstairs hallway		6	seconds
2. Hallway to top of stairway		5
3. Top of stairway to bottom of stairway		10
4. Stairway to doorway of safe room		5
5. Through hallway safe room door		2
	Total travel time	28	seconds
	Alert/Wake-up time	15
	Lock-down time	10
	Total time to shelter	53	seconds

Outside Underground Tornado Shelter

Leg of Trip to Emergency Shelter		Travel Time (seconds)
1. Bedroom to hallway closet		26	seconds
2. Hallway closet door to rear exit door		9
3. Rear exit door to bottom of outside stair		9
4. Outside stair to shelter door		12
5. Open shelter door		3
6. Down stairs into shelter		7
	Total travel time	66	seconds
	Alert/Wake-up time	15
	Lock-down time	10
	Total time to shelter	91	seconds

Conclusion

When precious seconds count, seeking shelter in an outside underground storm shelter can add as much 41% more travel time to safety.

Installing an in-home RemagenSafeRoom's StormCloset helps to increase your family's security - "keeping what's important to you safe".